Channeling public outrage over the recent subway service failures into public hearings next week, the City Council hopes to get the Metropolitan Transportation Authority to acknowledge that all is not well with the subway system.

“The MTA says nothing is wrong, but try telling that to the 350,000 people delayed on the Lexington line last week,” the Council’s transportation committee chairman, John Liu, told The New York Sun.

Though apologetic, transit officials have said the major service disruptions of the last week, including a major fire in the subway at Atlantic Avenue that shut down service during the morning commute Tuesday, were not indicative of systemic problems and that the subway operates better than it ever has.

Still, the chairman of the MTA, Peter Kalikow, has said that the health of the transit system is indeed fragile and would quickly deteriorate without adequate funding. Yesterday, the executive director of the MTA, Katherine Lapp, spent the day in Albany to lobby state legislators.

In a joint session yesterday, the Committee on Corporations, Authorities, and Commissions, which oversees the MTA, agreed to fund the MTA’s five-year capital plan at $17.9 billion, of which $15.4 billion would go toward the MTA’s core program, the committee chairman, Richard Brodsky, a Westchester assemblyman, said.

“We think this will do more than prevent a decline,” Mr. Brodsky said. “This will help expand and improve the system.”

The governor had slated $14.7 billion to go toward the core program to maintain the system in a state of good repair.

Though both numbers fall short of the $16 billion the MTA has asked for its core program, Ms. Lapp called the latest development progress, saying legislators have become sensitive to the needs of the subway, especially in light of the major service disruptions.

“People know this is a very delicate system that has been brought back from near collapse,” Ms. Lapp told The New York Sun. “Those problems are going to be exacerbated if we don’t get the needs of this capital plan met.”

Then she added: “The message in Albany is that they get it.”

In the city, hearings at the Council’s transportation committee will be an opportunity for Mr. Liu and others to gain a full accounting of the recent subway disruptions, which began last week with power failures that halted the Lexington Avenue subway last Wednesday, Mr. Liu said.

A former chairman of the MTA, Richard Ravitch, who helped institute the first capital plan in 1982, said public appearances, even under adverse circumstances, help strengthen the image of the authority.

“I spent a good deal of my life answering questions about the condition of the subway system,” Mr. Ravitch, who was chairman from 1979 until 1983, said. “That’s why I was able to make the case that we needed a vast amount of capital to restore the system to a condition of good repair.”

Largely missing from this picture has been the mayor, who critics say has spent his political capital on building a stadium on the far West Side of Manhattan.

The mayor has not always appeared to support the MTA’s capital plans.

In 2002, the mayor’s MTA board appointees approved a 50-cent fare hike. In December, Mr. Bloomberg’s representatives voted against another hike on fares and tolls.

The mayor, though, did speak publicly yesterday on the recent subway disruptions.

“I think what you are seeing is not a failure necessarily on the part of the current management,” Mr. Bloomberg said during a radio interview. “What you are seeing is failure that came about from years and years of not investing in new infrastructure in the subways, the buses, and other forms of mass transit, and now it’s coming home to roost.”

When told of the comments, Mr. Liu laughed.

“Personally, it’s gratifying to hear the mayor say what he did,” Mr. Liu said. “I guess he looked at the statement I issued last Wednesday.”

That came after the power failures of the Lexington Avenue line. While there were no major disruptions yesterday, re-routings and inconveniences yesterday rankled an already weary public.

Laurie Nan was livid after she missed her doctor’s appointment yesterday because a broken rail forced local 1 and 9 trains onto express tracks from Times Square to Chambers Street.

“Its just beyond words,” she said. “I just have no patience anymore, and I have no tolerance for their excuses anymore. It’s just too often, and they just don’t care.”